7 ms·

I live in SF and have spent a lot of time thinking about the problems here. I don't think you can understand SF today without starting from this foundational a

I live in SF and have spent a lot of time thinking about the problems here. I don't think you can understand SF today without starting from this foundational assumption, which is something of a narrative violation, actually. I don't see many starting from this point of view - but I do, and I think it explains almost everything in his article. That assumption is: San Francisco is a city for the rich. That's what really explains the motivations and the things that matter, politically. Furthermore (starting from there), as a city for the rich, SF cares proportionately less than other metropolises would, about things that in other places would make for strong incentives. So, housing. Remember, city for the rich: they are housed, in nice houses that should keep their value (not have it lowered by apartments). So new housing doesn't get built. Thefts: Eh, too bad, but if most if your shopping takes place through Postmates & Instacart... did it really happen? Do you really care? You don't feel the pain all that much. So your response is kind of lethargic. You're not personally losing money so it's not so bad really. BART: You don't use that, lol. I mean it'll keep running and you can get from place to place on it, for the sake of working people, sure. But beyond that... whatever. School Board: Your kids go to private school. Next. Tech: We already have money, and jobs. We (the voters) are already very well off. It's fine it tech wants to add to our economy, but we don't need tech and we're not threatened by its departure. And that's very much what happened. If you look at most of the problems in SF, and the way the voting public has responded, to me this model has the most explanatory power. Now maybe the average SF voter isn't rich - but the people who shape the conversation & have the most impact are. SF is very much a city that caters to them.

mercy_dude 5y ago
You can replace SF with any big coastal city in America and it’s the same story.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Neither Boston nor DC are that bad. I hear Philly is trying though, no recent first hand experience with that one.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    The actual city of Philly is generally a mess, similar to what is described above. SEPTA is meh. Every few years they strike and you're stranded. Short, direct trips are OK. It's a long complicated process for certain trips. Payment can be different for each type. High speed line - put bills in the money feeder, subway - tokens, regional line - buy a ticket, etc. Schools... most are junk. It's basically a moot point though. If you have money and a family you live in the suburbs where the schools are better, not the actual city. Philly is the poorest county in the state and one of the poorest cities in the nation. Meanwhile, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties are very affluent. Housing is expensive relative to pay opportunities in the area. You can find cheaper housing, but it's probably not a safe neighborhood. We are in a tech desert. It seems most jobs in the area are at or slight below the national average for pay. Living expenses are a bit above average, I think.
    - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
      I grew up in the Philly suburbs and went to Temple..I laugh at the idea of rich people choosing to live in center city. They fixed the payment thing for septa but during covid all the progress made on crime went out the window. They also tear gassed some affluent white techies in the crowd during the protests because the blue collar cops in Philly are some of the dumbest individuals I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with. I literally moved to Maui during covid and was able to pay the same rent I was throwing away on an apartment in Northern liberties but instead I was 500 ft from the ocean
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    Philly cost of living is fantastic. The local job opportunities don't pay as well as DC or Boston or NYC or SF. But you can just work remotely for a big company and get a reasonable wage. Not being a parent I don't know about the school system.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I would not call it fantastic. It's better than the cities you just named, but at least average, probably a bit above average.
908B64B197 5y ago
> School Board: Your kids go to private school. Next. Maybe policies like these aren't really helping [0]. Who would blame the parents for that? [0] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Make a list of issues affecting education: teachers can't afford to live in the city where they work, underfunding, etc. Is the issue you linked in the top 3? Top 5? I suspect top 5 or 10 issues will be about money.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    Funding actually has very little to do with results in education. There's even a controlled experiment/case study we can reference: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-more-money-fix-americas-schools https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-mor... Paraphrasing/shortening a bit: "Something remarkable happened in New Jersey in the late 1990s... as part of a school funding lawsuit known as Abbott v. Burke, the state increased spending in 31 of its then-poorest districts... spending in some of the districts eclipsed some of the state's wealthiest districts." "But, all these years later, many are still "spending 2.5 times the national average, and there's no real evidence that they're closing the achievement gap" It's self evident that funding doesn't matter beyond some low threshold amount where basic necessities are met. Success is about culture and especially culture of your peers. Kids are highly influenced by their parents/peers in terms of what they aspire to do and be. Kids in wealthy districts don't succeed because of educational funding; they succeed because wealthy parents are more likely to set high academics standards for their kids. And those kids become friends with other kids with high standards. And they carry that culture forward with them.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      I've been to schools in Russia, and I have never heard of some of the problems I read about in schools in US. I do not understand how you can have those issues with 10X the GDP. It sounds like a caste system, children being set up from the start of their life Culture matters, sure, but if you are freesing in class, that's definately distracting.
kodah 5y ago
As an outsider and recent transplant, this tracks. Earlier this morning I was busy getting spammed on the Bay Area subreddit where redditor after redditor assumed I must have financial problems because I can't buy a house here. That is, in fact, not the case.
- nextos 5y ago
  The major problem in the Bay Area and other metropolitan regions is that the house cost / salary ratio has increased a lot. Sadly, this is also the case in Europe, where most major cities that were a good deal 10 years ago are very expensive now. Even taking into consideration that tech salaries are way above average. Another thread argued the Midwest is more balanced. What are other US areas with good universities and on-site tech job opportunities?
  - kodah 5y ago
    I'd say that the housing crisis is broader than that, but also agree with you. Even if you solve an inventory problem, there also exists a "commute to work" problem, whereby if I'm not rich enough to live near work then I drive over an hour or take complicated public transport (in the US). That far out, things also get more expensive and inconvenient, which creates another class-based issue. I have empathy for the people solving these problems, because inevitably they're going to screw someone.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cvhashim 5y ago
    Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix
  - piva00 5y ago
    > Sadly, this is also the case in Europe, where most major cities that were a good deal 10 years ago are very expensive now. Even taking into consideration that tech salaries are way above average. Yup, I've moved to Stockholm 6 years ago, house prices in this short period have shot up considerably, with a minor slump around 2018-2019 when some new regulations on credit were introduced. Still appreciating after that, getting more and more unaffordable for me even with a pretty nice salary in tech. I don't come from a wealthy family, I don't have family money from a house sale that I could use as a downpayment. I will have to save a lot to cover a downpayment and then I will just add to the problem, getting cheap credit that will then inflate house prices. I feel completely trapped, getting into this game is personally beneficial but pretty detrimental to society in the long run. Also, getting in the game in this all-time high feels bonkers, I don't think that timing the market is doable but it just feels pointless to embark on a 30-year mortgage without knowing what's the future in housing, simply because it already looks unsustainable this can keep going for another 20-30 years. Absolutely unsustainable.
mistrial9 5y ago
techie - you missed something.. SF has the highest ratio of ethnic chinese to overall population, in the USA. SF is for "the rich" and "the chinese" and they BOTH have insular coping mechanisms. Most other ethnic groups in the entire world are also there, of course, but often move away when they can (like my own infant grandmother and her family btw). side note - one of my actual relatives was Mayor of San Francisco, long ago.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  If the Chinese population had their way, the black underclass would have been expelled from San Francisco a long time ago. You should see what SF residents post on Wechat.
  - egberts1 5y ago
    Black population in SF has been reduce by 70% since 1973-4. No idea what the factors are.
    - Redoubts 5y ago
      Dunno, but I wanna meet one white person in SF who has ever though about this.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      The analysis you usually see is that the Democratic method of getting rid of the underclass is to sweat them out with a rising cost of living until they choose to leave. On this analysis, the effect is certainly there -- a reduction over time is nothing to sneeze at -- and yet not very effective in terms of actually cleaning up the problem. But note that this strategy would be severely undermined by letting the price of housing in SF fall.
  - xiaodai 5y ago
    I really don't appreciate putting the blame like this and inciting racial violence.
rce 5y ago
I don't think this really makes sense. If the city were really just for rich people who don't care about others, then why don't they kick out all the homeless? And why would they pass a high tax on businesses? And how can you say the wealthy don't care about jobs leaving or tech decline when most of the money here is from tech and the rich people work in tech? I could just as easily say the poorest run city policies: Housing - don't want gentrification and are rent-controlled anyway Thefts - don't care about rich store owners or home owners and don't want to be hassled by the police Schools - if they can't do advanced math then get rid of it so that no one is ahead of them Tech - they don't work in tech and don't want to compete against rich techies for housing I think the truth is that it's run by the entrenched, which is a mix of the rich and poor: people who already own property (because their families have been here a long time or because they're rich) and people who have rent-controlled apartments
- chelical 5y ago
  The wealthy can and often do benefit from rent-controlled units. Not only that, but they trade rent controlled units within their social circle. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Rent-control-sometimes-benefiting-the-rich-3638604.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Rent-control-s... To the first commenter's point, most of the policies you mentioned are painful for middle class residents, but don't really affect the wealthy elite.
- coolso 5y ago
  > then why don't they kick out all the homeless? And why would they pass a high tax on businesses Maybe they’re mostly liberal?
- saargrin 5y ago
  i dont see how you can practically kick out the homeless even if you really wanted to , without it being an absolute bloodbath
mise_en_place 5y ago
I think you’ve never really lived in a city that caters to the rich. SF is a far cry from that, believe me. What you’ll notice is: * Cops have a visible presence everywhere. They will scrutinize each and every person entering the city. * Gated communities and guard gated communities. Neighborhoods are designed to be extremely confusing with bizarre zigzags and traffic circles, to trap would be burglars and robbers. * Neighborhood watch patrolling the streets during the night to make sure suspicious persons are identified and monitored. In short, SF is a city that caters to government elites and their stooges. The tech elites live in Menlo Park, Los Altos, Saratoga, Los Gatos, etc… Edit: if you want to see a comedic rendition of what it’s like to accidentally stumble into one of these cities, I highly recommend the Big Lebowski, particularly the scene where the Dude ends up in Malibu. Someone who is not me can corroborate similar events happening when entering such enclaves. ;)
david38 5y ago
I live in Burlingame and this is pretty far from the truth. We care deeply about our schools and donate millions every year to support them. We absolutely care about Caltrain. We absolutely care about crime. The whole point of living in Burlingame is good schools and low crime. Why else would we pay such insane prices for housing?
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> Thefts: Eh, too bad, but if most if your shopping takes place through Postmates & Instacart... did it really happen? Do you really care? You don't feel the pain all that much. So your response is kind of lethargic. You're not personally losing money so it's not so bad really. Coming up with such an explanation involves a lot of mental gymnastics. We all know why this phenomenon is happening, why the guards are not intervening and so on. As for your other points: the idea that the rich prefer to live in a city plagued by homeless drug addicts and robbers getting away unpunished is absurd.
kamaal 5y ago
>>San Francisco is a city for the rich. Whole Bay Area, is also a kind of poverty filter, or at least in a way luck filter To make it here you need to pass through a long filter of luck, hard work and lottery to eventually make it. Most people arrive, almost all of those have to leave. In the case of immigrants this is even more true. You are not going to Bay Area, CA to start a family, you are going there to test your luck. Its ok, to not make it, its no reflection on the merit of your case. But there's only that many bricks that go on the top of a pyramid, by very definition.
nickpp 5y ago
San Francisco politics is not controlled by "the rich". It is controlled by the "progressive" left. They should own the result.
- kcplate 5y ago
  …but their intentions are good so the results don’t matter.

mercy_dude 5y ago

You can replace SF with any big coastal city in America and it’s the same story.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Neither Boston nor DC are that bad. I hear Philly is trying though, no recent first hand experience with that one.
- giantg2 5y ago
  The actual city of Philly is generally a mess, similar to what is described above. SEPTA is meh. Every few years they strike and you're stranded. Short, direct trips are OK. It's a long complicated process for certain trips. Payment can be different for each type. High speed line - put bills in the money feeder, subway - tokens, regional line - buy a ticket, etc. Schools... most are junk. It's basically a moot point though. If you have money and a family you live in the suburbs where the schools are better, not the actual city. Philly is the poorest county in the state and one of the poorest cities in the nation. Meanwhile, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties are very affluent. Housing is expensive relative to pay opportunities in the area. You can find cheaper housing, but it's probably not a safe neighborhood. We are in a tech desert. It seems most jobs in the area are at or slight below the national average for pay. Living expenses are a bit above average, I think.
  - 0x0nyandesu 5y ago
    I grew up in the Philly suburbs and went to Temple..I laugh at the idea of rich people choosing to live in center city. They fixed the payment thing for septa but during covid all the progress made on crime went out the window. They also tear gassed some affluent white techies in the crowd during the protests because the blue collar cops in Philly are some of the dumbest individuals I've ever had the displeasure of interacting with. I literally moved to Maui during covid and was able to pay the same rent I was throwing away on an apartment in Northern liberties but instead I was 500 ft from the ocean
- eatonphil 5y ago
  Philly cost of living is fantastic. The local job opportunities don't pay as well as DC or Boston or NYC or SF. But you can just work remotely for a big company and get a reasonable wage. Not being a parent I don't know about the school system.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I would not call it fantastic. It's better than the cities you just named, but at least average, probably a bit above average.

908B64B197 5y ago

> School Board: Your kids go to private school. Next. Maybe policies like these aren't really helping [0]. Who would blame the parents for that? [0] https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/1_STRIDE1.pdf https://equitablemath.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/11...

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Make a list of issues affecting education: teachers can't afford to live in the city where they work, underfunding, etc. Is the issue you linked in the top 3? Top 5? I suspect top 5 or 10 issues will be about money.
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  Funding actually has very little to do with results in education. There's even a controlled experiment/case study we can reference: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-more-money-fix-americas-schools https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/25/468157856/can-mor... Paraphrasing/shortening a bit: "Something remarkable happened in New Jersey in the late 1990s... as part of a school funding lawsuit known as Abbott v. Burke, the state increased spending in 31 of its then-poorest districts... spending in some of the districts eclipsed some of the state's wealthiest districts." "But, all these years later, many are still "spending 2.5 times the national average, and there's no real evidence that they're closing the achievement gap" It's self evident that funding doesn't matter beyond some low threshold amount where basic necessities are met. Success is about culture and especially culture of your peers. Kids are highly influenced by their parents/peers in terms of what they aspire to do and be. Kids in wealthy districts don't succeed because of educational funding; they succeed because wealthy parents are more likely to set high academics standards for their kids. And those kids become friends with other kids with high standards. And they carry that culture forward with them.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    I've been to schools in Russia, and I have never heard of some of the problems I read about in schools in US. I do not understand how you can have those issues with 10X the GDP. It sounds like a caste system, children being set up from the start of their life Culture matters, sure, but if you are freesing in class, that's definately distracting.

kodah 5y ago

As an outsider and recent transplant, this tracks. Earlier this morning I was busy getting spammed on the Bay Area subreddit where redditor after redditor assumed I must have financial problems because I can't buy a house here. That is, in fact, not the case.

nextos 5y ago
The major problem in the Bay Area and other metropolitan regions is that the house cost / salary ratio has increased a lot. Sadly, this is also the case in Europe, where most major cities that were a good deal 10 years ago are very expensive now. Even taking into consideration that tech salaries are way above average. Another thread argued the Midwest is more balanced. What are other US areas with good universities and on-site tech job opportunities?
- kodah 5y ago
  I'd say that the housing crisis is broader than that, but also agree with you. Even if you solve an inventory problem, there also exists a "commute to work" problem, whereby if I'm not rich enough to live near work then I drive over an hour or take complicated public transport (in the US). That far out, things also get more expensive and inconvenient, which creates another class-based issue. I have empathy for the people solving these problems, because inevitably they're going to screw someone.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cvhashim 5y ago
  Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix
- piva00 5y ago
  > Sadly, this is also the case in Europe, where most major cities that were a good deal 10 years ago are very expensive now. Even taking into consideration that tech salaries are way above average. Yup, I've moved to Stockholm 6 years ago, house prices in this short period have shot up considerably, with a minor slump around 2018-2019 when some new regulations on credit were introduced. Still appreciating after that, getting more and more unaffordable for me even with a pretty nice salary in tech. I don't come from a wealthy family, I don't have family money from a house sale that I could use as a downpayment. I will have to save a lot to cover a downpayment and then I will just add to the problem, getting cheap credit that will then inflate house prices. I feel completely trapped, getting into this game is personally beneficial but pretty detrimental to society in the long run. Also, getting in the game in this all-time high feels bonkers, I don't think that timing the market is doable but it just feels pointless to embark on a 30-year mortgage without knowing what's the future in housing, simply because it already looks unsustainable this can keep going for another 20-30 years. Absolutely unsustainable.

mistrial9 5y ago

techie - you missed something.. SF has the highest ratio of ethnic chinese to overall population, in the USA. SF is for "the rich" and "the chinese" and they BOTH have insular coping mechanisms. Most other ethnic groups in the entire world are also there, of course, but often move away when they can (like my own infant grandmother and her family btw). side note - one of my actual relatives was Mayor of San Francisco, long ago.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
If the Chinese population had their way, the black underclass would have been expelled from San Francisco a long time ago. You should see what SF residents post on Wechat.
- egberts1 5y ago
  Black population in SF has been reduce by 70% since 1973-4. No idea what the factors are.
  - Redoubts 5y ago
    Dunno, but I wanna meet one white person in SF who has ever though about this.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    The analysis you usually see is that the Democratic method of getting rid of the underclass is to sweat them out with a rising cost of living until they choose to leave. On this analysis, the effect is certainly there -- a reduction over time is nothing to sneeze at -- and yet not very effective in terms of actually cleaning up the problem. But note that this strategy would be severely undermined by letting the price of housing in SF fall.
- xiaodai 5y ago
  I really don't appreciate putting the blame like this and inciting racial violence.

rce 5y ago

I don't think this really makes sense. If the city were really just for rich people who don't care about others, then why don't they kick out all the homeless? And why would they pass a high tax on businesses? And how can you say the wealthy don't care about jobs leaving or tech decline when most of the money here is from tech and the rich people work in tech? I could just as easily say the poorest run city policies: Housing - don't want gentrification and are rent-controlled anyway Thefts - don't care about rich store owners or home owners and don't want to be hassled by the police Schools - if they can't do advanced math then get rid of it so that no one is ahead of them Tech - they don't work in tech and don't want to compete against rich techies for housing I think the truth is that it's run by the entrenched, which is a mix of the rich and poor: people who already own property (because their families have been here a long time or because they're rich) and people who have rent-controlled apartments

chelical 5y ago
The wealthy can and often do benefit from rent-controlled units. Not only that, but they trade rent controlled units within their social circle. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Rent-control-sometimes-benefiting-the-rich-3638604.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/nevius/article/Rent-control-s... To the first commenter's point, most of the policies you mentioned are painful for middle class residents, but don't really affect the wealthy elite.
coolso 5y ago
> then why don't they kick out all the homeless? And why would they pass a high tax on businesses Maybe they’re mostly liberal?
saargrin 5y ago
i dont see how you can practically kick out the homeless even if you really wanted to , without it being an absolute bloodbath

mise_en_place 5y ago

I think you’ve never really lived in a city that caters to the rich. SF is a far cry from that, believe me. What you’ll notice is: * Cops have a visible presence everywhere. They will scrutinize each and every person entering the city. * Gated communities and guard gated communities. Neighborhoods are designed to be extremely confusing with bizarre zigzags and traffic circles, to trap would be burglars and robbers. * Neighborhood watch patrolling the streets during the night to make sure suspicious persons are identified and monitored. In short, SF is a city that caters to government elites and their stooges. The tech elites live in Menlo Park, Los Altos, Saratoga, Los Gatos, etc… Edit: if you want to see a comedic rendition of what it’s like to accidentally stumble into one of these cities, I highly recommend the Big Lebowski, particularly the scene where the Dude ends up in Malibu. Someone who is not me can corroborate similar events happening when entering such enclaves. ;)

david38 5y ago

I live in Burlingame and this is pretty far from the truth. We care deeply about our schools and donate millions every year to support them. We absolutely care about Caltrain. We absolutely care about crime. The whole point of living in Burlingame is good schools and low crime. Why else would we pay such insane prices for housing?

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

> Thefts: Eh, too bad, but if most if your shopping takes place through Postmates & Instacart... did it really happen? Do you really care? You don't feel the pain all that much. So your response is kind of lethargic. You're not personally losing money so it's not so bad really. Coming up with such an explanation involves a lot of mental gymnastics. We all know why this phenomenon is happening, why the guards are not intervening and so on. As for your other points: the idea that the rich prefer to live in a city plagued by homeless drug addicts and robbers getting away unpunished is absurd.

kamaal 5y ago

>>San Francisco is a city for the rich. Whole Bay Area, is also a kind of poverty filter, or at least in a way luck filter To make it here you need to pass through a long filter of luck, hard work and lottery to eventually make it. Most people arrive, almost all of those have to leave. In the case of immigrants this is even more true. You are not going to Bay Area, CA to start a family, you are going there to test your luck. Its ok, to not make it, its no reflection on the merit of your case. But there's only that many bricks that go on the top of a pyramid, by very definition.

nickpp 5y ago

San Francisco politics is not controlled by "the rich". It is controlled by the "progressive" left. They should own the result.

kcplate 5y ago
…but their intentions are good so the results don’t matter.